


The Haunting

by Bornon413



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Horror, M/M, Romance, Spiritual Activity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:32:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 18,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bornon413/pseuds/Bornon413
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>GPI is a paranormal investigators team, but when a trip to a graveyard to test out their new equipment goes terribly wrong, Dave is the one to suffer most of the spiritual blows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You find a tattered cardboard box.

**Author's Note:**

> Pay attention to the chapter names.

_Relax, it’s just a fucking graveyard._  
 _Tell that to the thunderstorm._  
 _Shut up you idiot._  
Dave shook his head and he frowned, but just barely. Cool kids don’t frown. They keep their shit together even if they have to conduct a paranormal investigation in the middle of the fucking night at a grave yard. With fucking thunder and lightning. Fucking thunder and lightning.  
He glanced up at the sky. The clouds had pretty much obscured any and all possibilities of moonlight. On the bright side, all the humidity could enhance spirit activity. He grabbed the radio, “Yo, John how’re things at home base?”  
“I haven’t seen anything, yet... unless you count an opossum climbing up a tree with my stash of grapes activity.”  
“Very funny Egbert. I’m going to try for an EVP. Tell Rose and Jade to steer clear of my section of the cemetery, ’kay?”  
Rose’s voice came in a bit garbled due to the wind. “We can hear you, Dave.”  
“Well that’s great to know that I’m coming in loud and clear.”  
“Ladies, you heard the man, give him space for some evidence collection.” John chuckled. “Now quit clogging up the radio.”  
Dave mock saluted “Over and out.”  
Dave set down his camera on a headstone and used the light attached to it to help him find the tape recorder. God damn it. There was so much shit in this backpack. He was mildly surprised that he could even carry the damn thing; there was so much shit packed in it. EMF detector, pack of twenty batteries, thermal camera, two extra flashlights, tape recorder—there it was! He grabbed it and checked how much tape was left. Thank God Jade had put a new cassette in it. There was no way he was going to look through that bottomless maw of a backpack again. Lightning danced across the sky. One, two, three, four. Thunder. That storm was getting a lot closer for comfort.  
Dave picked up his camera and continued walking until he found a mausoleum. Well, this could get some interesting results. He sat down on the steps and turned the camera onto himself. The light glinted off of his shades and back onto the camera, “Alright, I’m going to try an EVP session. Here goes nothing.”  
He turned the camera back on the tape recorder. He pressed the record button. “Is there anyone here?”  
He felt kind of stupid for talking when no one was there, but hey, that’s what the point of joining GPI was. Georgia Paranormal Investigators was obviously a team of four investigators that go across the Georgia to help people with their ghost problems. The team members were Dave, John, Rose and Jade. Believe it or not, Georgia was actually a very haunted place. It didn’t really help that the mausoleum Dave was sitting in front of belonged to a very wealthy family. As in, one that had been burned to death during Sherman’s march to the sea, along with many others. Dave listened and looked around for any activity. No response; just the sound of the wind blowing.  
“Do you remember the Great Burning?” Dave used the southern term for the march to the sea.  
The wind blew. Hard. It almost blew away the tape recorder before Dave pressed it down to... was that marble? Wow. Really wealthy family. They must have been fucking loaded to build this thing.  
A cold breeze whistled past his ear, “Yes.”  
He jumped a bit. Wasn’t expecting that.  
“What do you want?” His voice was very even, even though he was mentally about to lose his shit, but at the same time it was a bit exciting to get a reply because it didn’t happen often.  
The wind slowed and lightning crackled. One two three. Thunder. Better wrap this up.  
Dave decided that this would be his last question “Are you human?”  
A bolt of lightning shot out across the sky. The hair on Dave’s arm stood on end. The air smelled of soon-born rain and ozone. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and flicked off the recorder.  
“Thank you for your time.” He turned and almost ran back to home base. A hand reached out and grabbed his backpack. He could feel the cold radiating off of it. It was colder than the fake iceberg at the Titanic exhibit at the museum where he visited at home. He dropped his backpack and began to feel an intense pain across his back. Shit. He grabbed his backpack off of the moist grass and ran. He ran, almost tripping over headstones as he went. He wanted to get out of here. He felt warm water pelting him from behind. The storm was chasing him back to John. Fuck. He could see the GPI truck where Rose and Jade were about to climb aboard. He shoved past them. He tumbled down in front of John, who was surrounded by several monitors.  
He pushed off his backpack and shoved away his camera. John stood up and was unsure of what to do as Dave wrestled with his jacket. Dave pulled his shirt off.  
“Strider, we don’t need a strip tease--” Rose cut herself off as she saw his back. She climbed into the truck and Jade followed her. Jade gasped.  
Dave was very pale, “What? What is it?”  
John looked very upset. “There are cuts on your back.”  
“What?”  
“Oh for fucks sakes.” Jade grabbed a camera out of her back pack and took a picture of Dave’s back. She snapped a picture. She showed Dave.  
There was one word carved into his back. Blood trickled from the slash marks, making it even more terrifying. He felt his chest tighten as he read it.  
 _NO_.


	2. There are a bunch of cassettes in it.

Dave collapsed into bed. His back was sore from the rubbing alcohol and holy water John had used to clean out the cuts on his back.  
“Hey Dave, I’m going to bed. Call me if you need anything.” John poked his head in the door way. “We’ll review evidence tomorrow, okay?”  
Dave peered out of the corner of his shades. “Whatever Egbert. Just go to bed. I’ll be fine.” Light was streaming in from the open door.  
“Okay.” John paused and gently shut the door.  
Dave rolled over onto his back. “Jesus.” John had a habit of being very protective and tended to have a martyr complex. He always wanted to protect his friends, and that was great and all, but the dude kind of went overboard sometimes. Like, let me jump in front of a gun for you overboard. All the same, he and Dave were best bros and super cool roommates. They lived together just for the sake of bro-dome and it made it a lot easier on the whole getting the team together thing. Dave took off his sunglasses. He liked it better in the darker version of moonlight streaming through the blinds of the windows, but why not. He stared at the moonlight, secretly wishing that the kudzu that surrounded the window would cover it so that there would be no light in the room at all. He rolled back over onto his stomach.  
Sweet dreams Strider. He thought to himself.  
 _In the darkness, there was a light. He moved toward it. As Dave got closer, he realized it was a woman. She was beautiful. Her auburn hair flipped up at the ends, her bangs covered her eyes slightly. She was very pale, almost as pale as the moonlight that had been streaming through Dave’s window. When she saw him, she smiled. He almost lost himself and smiled back before remembered cool kids only smirk. One of the corners of his lips tipped up. She gently pushed her red glasses up her nose and a giggle escaped her lips. It sounded beautiful. She looked away shyly and brought her hand up to her face. She took off her glasses and looked back at him._  
 _Dave stopped dead in his tracks. Her eyes were wrong. They were solid red and had no pupils. The woman smiled again, only her teeth were replaced by jagged shark’s teeth. Dave felt a bead of sweat trickledown his temple. He tried his best to run, but he was paralyzed with fear. His hands shook and he balled them into fists. The woman practically floated toward him. All of Dave’s nerves stood on end as she drew nearer; her mouth looked wrong as it stretched over her raggedy teeth._  
 _She caressed his cheek and he flinched, but was held in place by some invisible force. His gazed lingered on her arm. The skin was translucent and webbed with blue veins. He felt bile rise in his throat. This was a monster. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “Forget and awake.”_  
Dave sat up in his bed. His heart was pounding, as if it wanted to leap out of his chest and run out of the room. He ran a hand through his platinum blonde hair and reached up to adjust his glasses. Wait. He snatched them off of his nightstand and put them in their rightful place. That was better. He wondered why he had taken them off in the first place. He shook his head and rubbed his temples. God that was a really scary dream. He hoped that... that.... he forgot what he was so scared of. He groaned and flopped back on the bed. He rolled over onto his stomach. It was just a stupid dream.  
Dave awoke to a beam of sunlight crawling slowly over his face and invading the sacred darkness behind his shades. Which at the moment were crooked across his face. He glared at the window. Dave wished that the kudzu would grow faster. Too bad John had a habit of trimming the shit back almost twenty-four seven. It got annoying.  
Dave’s gaze flicked over to the digital clock on his nightstand. 7:39 am. He grunted as he sat up in bed. Fuck. Dave rubbed his back. It was smooth. He stood up and headed to the bathroom in just his boxers. He examined his back.  
There was nothing there. Not even a scar. It was like the haunting ‘NO’ had never even existed. Dave frowned. This was not a good sign.  
Dave used his knuckles to tap on John’s door. “John, I need you to look at my back. John?”  
He opened the door. John was slumped against the headboard of his bed, his comforter and sheets clutched weakly in his hands. In all honesty, he looked really cute. His laptop sat in his lap, threatening to tumble onto the floor.  
Dave gently lifted the computer off of John’s lap and set it down on the desk. He must have been reviewing evidence until he fell asleep. Dave allowed a tiny smile to cross his lips. That kid was so damn dedicated. He wondered if he could just... Dave leaned in closer to John’s face until they were about an inch apart. Dave could feel John’s cool breath as he exhaled in his sleep. Dave smirked.  
“JOHN WAKE UP!”  
John jumped and his glasses nearly fell off of his face. Dave leaned away before their foreheads could collide. John shot Dave an irritated look.  
“You’re mean.”  
Dave shrugged, “Not really. It’s almost eight. Rose and Jade are coming over to review evidence at nine, remember?”  
“Shit!” John scrambled out of bed and proceeded to gather up a change of clothes.  
Dave left the room, pausing at the door to say, “Dibs on shower.”  
John groaned as Dave made his way to the bathroom. The faucets squeaked as he turned them. The room began to fill up with soothing steam; he stripped down, only leaving his sunglasses on. He kind of enjoyed the way his vision was shielded by a layer of dark glass and plastic. Even though the lenses fogged up, he didn’t mind. He pressed his forehead to the tile on the shower wall, enjoying the contrast from the hot water running down his back. Dave wondered what his dream was about and what he was so terrified about. After a little while, Dave poured a glop of shampoo into his palm and began to massage it into his scalp. He rinsed it out of his hair and grimaced as flecks of water began to dot his sunglasses. God damn it. He repeated the process with condition and soap. A knock sounded on the door, “Dave. Hurry up!”  
Dave turned off the water and grabbed a towel. He wrapped it around his waist as he stepped down onto the cool tile floor. He quickly wiped the moisture from his sunglasses and set to work to dry off the rest of his body.  
Dave turned the door knob and gently pushed open the door with his foot. Egbert had pranked him more than once after he had gotten out of the shower. All clear. He skittered into his room and locked the door behind him. He grabbed a fresh set of clothes: dark jeans, a red t-shirt, and dingy white sneakers. He rummaged about his room until he found his comb. He found it sitting on his dresser. He had left it on his nightstand yesterday. Weird. Dave just shook it off as he combed his hair off to one side. He wiped the now wet comb off on his jeans and stuck it back in its proper place on the nightstand. John had probably borrowed it; that guy had a knack for losing his combs. Dave shook his head and smirked. That guy was so derpy. He slung his towel over his shoulder and exited the room.  
Or at least, tried to.  
The lock was stuck. He fumbled with it. God damn old apartments. He fussed with the lock and finally took his hand away. It clicked open. Dave allowed a slightly bewildered look to decorate his countenance. What the hell just happened? He sighed and shook his head once more.  
 _This is all stupid._  
 _It’s just a stupid fucking lock._  
 _Chill._  
He put a hand to his temple and kneaded it for a few seconds before returning to the hallway. He entered the dining room—which had been converted to the meeting room since GPI had been established—and dragged out a few sets of head phones from the tangled mess of wires that sat in a tub in the corner. The dining room was more of a headquarters than a dining room. Two tables had been pushed up against the far walls and each had two different computers on them. There was a table in the center of the room that was generally used for any sort of material evidence, a place to take a break at during analysis, or a meeting desk for some clients. The table was actually just a shitty plastic folding table that the two boys had picked up at a garage sale, so today it had been folded up and was leaning on an empty wall with a door that lead to the kitchen, but no one usually used it a whole lot.  
He set to the tedious process of turning on all of the computer monitors and their respective towers set around the edges of the room. The computer each began to hum and buzz with their cheerful start-up noises; the tables that were pushed against the walls began to vibrate with the noise and motion of electronic life. He plunked a pair of head phones in front of each computer. He turned around in a circle to check if everything was set up properly. He knew that John had uploaded each machine with its respective boot of evidence. One would have audio and two would have the video from the cameras monitoring a certain spot for the night, and the last one would have the personal evidence they had recorded. Looking for any sort of evidence of spiritual evidence was a long and tedious process, and usually didn’t yield any results. It made it even more painstaking this round because they had gone to a graveyard to test out new equipment.  
Dave despised the idea of going back to that cemetery, but the weird thing was that it hadn’t been the first time that GPI had gone to test their equipment there. Although, it was the first time they had to pack up and leave early because of spirit-caused injuries. Dave allowed the corners of his lips to tip down a bit as he remembered last night and the absence of the marks on his back now. Yeah, he was never going to go back to that insufferable hell-hole ever again.


	3. Curious, you decide to watch them.

The buzzer rang about three times. “Alright, I’m coming.”   
It continued to ring as he sauntered to the door. He unlocked the dead bolt and pulled the door back unceremoniously. Rose and Jade stood at the entrance and they escorted themselves inside.  
“You two know you only have to ring the damn thing once, right? I mean, I’m a pretty big fucking deal and all, but one ring will work as good as fucking twenty.” Dave said, his tone was flat.  
Rose smirked and tapped a finger to his cheek and he shrank away from her touch, “Silly Strider, we didn’t want to disrupt any self-worshiping ceremonies you may be conducting... or any homoerotic ceremonies for that matter.”  
“Fuck. No, just stop. I don’t like John like that right now. We’re bros, okay?” Dave grimaced as Jade giggled.  
They made their way to HQ and gathered around the central table. Jade frowned “Where’s John?”  
“I’ll get him. That little twerp was up late last night reviewing evidence.” Dave slid smoothly out of his chair and out into the hall.   
He rapped his knuckles on John’s door for the second time that day. “Yo, John? You alive in there?”  
No answer.  
Dave frowned and pushed open the door. He felt and ice cold breeze caress his cheek, his heart began to beat faster. “John?”  
He saw something move and he flung the door open. John was lying on the carpet in his room, his glasses knocked askew, his face covered in sweat or water from his recent shower. Dave flew to his side. He pressed a hand to his forehead. His temperature was normal. Dave checked John’s heart rate. His heart beat steadily beneath the pale skin of his wrist. He grabbed John’s shoulder and gently shook it, calling his name. Slowly his voice began to get louder, and the shakes became more violent.   
Why isn’t he waking up? Shit. Shit. Shit.  
Dave stood up quickly and ran into the kitchen, his heart thundering in his chest. Oh god, please be okay. He snatched a cup from the cupboard and filled it with cool water. He rushed back to the room and gently poured the water over John’s face. John’s eyelids fluttered and Dave sighed in relief.   
Thank god.   
John sat up and began to rub the water out of his eyes. “I thought I took off my clothes before I took a shower.”  
“You scared the shit out of me, Egbert. Don’t do that again. It made me flashback to the last time I found someone on the floor.” Dave pursed his lips a bit before ruffling John’s hair.   
John frowned, “Oh... yeah...Bro...”  
“Yeah, let’s just drop it.” Dave hissed, “What were you doing just lying there?”  
“I don’t really know. I heard a voice and then everything’s kind of fuzzy after that.” John put a finger to his chin, “And then I felt like I was going to drown, but that was just you dumping water on me.”  
Dave shoved John’s arm playfully, “That was just me trying to save your life so we can review evidence, dipshit.”  
John laughed, “Sorry for worrying you.”  
Dave grabbed John’s wrist and pulled him to his feet, “No prob.”  
Dave turned to exit and was greeted by two giggling girls. His lips pulled down in a frown. “What is wrong with you two?” It wasn’t a question; it was more of a demand.  
“Nothing,” Jade waved a hand and the other covered the grin on her face.  
Dave rolled his eyes behind his shades and pushed past the two giggling idiot in the hallway. He wondered why the fuck Rose had to be obsessed with shoving John and him into a stupid pairing. It wasn’t like he didn’t mind dating guys, hell, he had dated men before. It just pissed him off that she was pushing so hard for it. He plunked down into a computer and began to spin around in circles. He stopped as the other three people gradually entered the room.   
“I call personal evidence.” He said.  
John and Jade groaned, Rose just smirked. “I’ll take audio, I suppose.” She said.  
Dave smirked back at Rose “Looks like you two get to split video.”  
“Do we have to? It’s so boring. Can I trade with you Dave?” Jade begged.  
“Hell no.”  
John butted into the conversation, “We’ll do snacks in about an hour, okay?”  
Everyone agreed and settled into their respective computers, slipped on the noise-cancelling headphones and set to work. Dave never really liked having to do the personal camera evidence, but it was nice that the others didn’t see how bad he would freak out on some cases. In a normal sense, freaking out a bit was perfectly logical and part of human nature, but Dave didn’t see it that way. He saw it as a weakness, and one that could be picked at until it became a phobia or an injury...or at least something for people to make fun of him for it. God, he hated it when people made fun of him.  
Dave watched Jade and Rose’s personal video logs, relishing the fact that he was able to find a few energy orbs after Rose did an EVP session. So far, it looked like the cameras and microphones were all doing their jobs. Time passed by and break finally came.   
The four of them clustered around the central table as John brought out a bowl of fruit salad and Dave hefted a platter of ham and mustard sandwiches (they were currently out of cheese).   
They discussed the evidence they had discovered so far and made a few obscene jokes at each other’s expense. Soon it was over, and they went back to work. After two hours, they concluded that their equipment test run was a success. As the two girls began to take their leave, Rose took Dave aside.  
“Dave,” she began, “If you’re still upset about your brother, you should keep a video diary.”  
Dave made a face, “Why the fuck would I do that? It sounds incredibly lame.”  
“It’s just not good to bottle things up.” Rose turned and fell instep behind Jade.  
Dave just stood there, unsure of what to think of Rose’s sudden outreach to him about his Bro.


	4. Tape 1

Dave sat on his bed in front of the tripod. He had found an old recording camera that they used to use on investigations. It ran on cassette tapes instead of broadcasting a wireless signal to the computers at location HQ. He’d watched video blogs before on YouTube, but those were really more for entertainment purposes. Dave wasn’t really sure what to say, he guessed that he could just talk to the camera. He clicked on the recorder. He stared into the camera lens for what felt like hours before he began speaking.   
His voice was hesitant. “My name is Dave. I’m twenty-one and I’m from Houston, Texas.”  
Dave made a face before jamming his finger into the stop and then into the rewind button. The tape rewound itself to the beginning and Dave heaved a sigh. He honestly had no idea what to do. As with most things in life he thought: This is stupid. Nevertheless, he pushed down the record button again.   
“I’m Dave. I really have no fucking idea why I’m recording this. My friend Rose told me that I have issues and I need an outlet or some shit like that. I guess I should tell people about my Bro, but I don’t know. I mean, who’s going to even watch these? This is so stupid...”—he froze—“but somehow I have a feeling it’s going to be important. I guess I’ll start with my job.  
I work for GPI. It stands for ‘Georgia Paranormal Investigators’. I have three other people that work with me: John, Jade, and Rose.   
A few days ago, we were doing a test run on some of our equipment in a graveyard. We’d been there before.” Dave looked around his room, fidgeting, “I was trying to do an EVP session to test out our new recorders and...something went wrong. Like really wrong.” The man took several deep breaths before continuing, his voice was a bit watery, “I asked about three questions...and the last one I asked are you human? A lightning bolt almost hit me and I ran away.” He scrubbed at his eyes behind his shades. God, he probably looked so pathetic. Bro would be ashamed at his current lack of cool.“Something grabbed my backpack and I felt like my back was on fire. It let go and I ran to HQ, when I took off my shirt there was a ‘NO’ carved into my back. Like someone had taken a fucking knife and written it across my back.”  
He stopped.   
“Little things have been happening around the apartment, too. Things have been moved around and the night I came home I had a nightmare I couldn’t even fucking remember after I woke up. John hasn’t been holding up very well; he says that he hasn’t been sleeping well. I worry about him.”  
Dave looked away from the camera briefly before the tape clicked to a stop.  
He hoped no one else would ever watch that. He felt like he had just revealed a part of himself to a stranger. He kind of felt like he had just broken multiple rules of cool... but yet... he felt better. Maybe Rose was right after all. Not that he’d ever tell her that. He took out the tape and flipped it over. He then proceeded to fold up the tripod and stuff it as far back in the closet as it could go. No one could see these tapes, he decided. Not even John.  
He peered out in the hallway. He could’ve sworn that something moved out of the corner of his eye. He looked. Nothing. He was being paranoid. He shook his head. Maybe there wasn’t a ghost, maybe he was just imagining the whole thing. Maybe he was crazy. No, that was a stupid assumption. He decided to just go to the fucking kitchen to make food.   
The off-white tile in the kitchen was cool to the touch. John knelt in front of the fridge, his face blank. Dave tapped him on the shoulder and he looked up. “Hey,”  
“Dude, why are staring into the fridge?”  
John blinked, “I was hoping to find something to eat.”  
Dave sighed and pinched the bridge of this nose. This kid was so fucking helpless some times. “Okay, look. I’ll make tacos since we have some ground beef in the fridge. Will that make you feel better, Egderp?”  
“Yeah,” John looked a bit distant, but still annoyed. John grabbed the ground meat out of the fridge and handed it to Dave. Dave rifled through the cupboards until he found a package to taco shells.  
“John.” Dave sighed, “What’s up?”  
John blinked a bit and attempted to smile, “I’m just really tired.”  
Dave grabbed an iron skillet from one of the cupboards by the sink and stuck it over the largest burner on the stove. “That’s a load of bullshit and you and me both know it.”  
“Yeah.” John agreed. Dave was getting a bit annoyed with this kid. “But I really haven’t been getting a lot of sleep. You know I’ve been having nightmares.”  
“Yeah, and you don’t remember what they’re about afterward, I know. You actually sound kind of sick and you look like shit. Pass the vegetable oil.”John handed Dave the carton of vegetable oil and Dave poured it into the pan. Dave flipped on the burner.   
John chuckled. It was a very sad noise; it really only held half of the heartiness that it used to, “I know. I just don’t want you to worry about me too much.”  
“You look like shit, therefore it makes me worry about you. So if you need medicine, we can go get some for you.” Dave dumped the ground beef in the pan and tucked all of the taco shells in the oven. He set the oven to ‘warm’. He tapped a few spices into the pan and used a spatula to push the meat around.  
John looked away and began fiddling with a loose thread on his shirt “I would ask you to get some sleeping pills, but I don’t know what’s worse: not being able to wake up from the nightmare or not getting enough sleep.”  
“Good point.” Dave tossed the meat. “Maybe we should find a case or some shit. It would do you good to get out of the house and work a bit.”  
John silently nodded. “I’ll go check my emails, I guess.”  
The dark haired man began to leave, but Dave snagged him by the back of the collar. “Oh no you don’t. You have to eat my awesome tacos fist.”  
“Dave, I don’t want to eat your shitty tacos.”   
“Liar, you were the one looking for food to eat earlier. Also, my tacos aren’t shitty. They’re the shit.” Dave flipped off the burner and moved the skillet to a cooler burner.  
“You don’t even put onions in them!” John was starting to smile more.  
The other man pulled open the oven and used a rag to pluck all the toasted taco shells from the hot depths of the oven. “That’s what makes them the shit. Onions are disgusting and can make even the coolest of dudes tear up a bit.”  
John laughed, the happiness and Dave felt better. This was the John he liked to see, the one that smiled and made fun of Dave’s food. “We have cheese in the fridge.” Dave offered.  
“Yeah, I’ll get that.” John hunched over in front of the fridge and began to rummage about while Dave began to shovel meat into taco shells, the scent of chili powder and corn prevailing over all the other scents.   
John returned with the cheese and sprinkled it generously over all the tacos. They moved them onto a plate and sat down on the couch in the living room. John turned on the TV, which was conveniently set to the Funimation channel. Dave quickly snatched away the remote, took out the batteries and stuffed it in the couch. John sighed and shoved a taco in his mouth.  
“You win this time, Strider.” He said to Dave around his mouthful of taco.  
Dave followed suit and relaxed against the couch, “Damn right, Egbert.”  
John poked Dave and the face. “Just wait until I get you back. Just you wait, Dave.”  
“Just wait ‘til I lose the remote.” Dave slapped away the hand, “And I’ll make sure to leave the cable on the Lifetime Channel.”  
They laughed. Maybe today wouldn’t be so bad after all.


	5. Tape 2

Dave hunched over John’s shoulder, watching him check his emails at HQ. Most of it was junk mail, but the two of them were able to weed out a few client emails. Out of the twelve emails they had received from clients, there were only five that were actual requests for investigations. John clicked on one that was nearby, and mentioned a poltergeist in a restaurant.   
Dave scanned through the email. Apparently there was something about a ghost moving glasses and employee’s cleaning supplies after and before hours. There had been a few sightings of around three different apparitions in different places. Also, employees had heard noises, like the sound of men fighting and someone cooking in the kitchen when nobody else was around at the time.  
“This looks like it would be worth checking out,” John said. He turned to look up at Dave, the blue-white light of the computer glinting off of his glasses.  
Dave smirked, he had always liked poltergeists. “Yeah, why the hell not?”  
John grinned, “Alright, I’ll forward the email to Rose and Jade.” He turned back to the computer.  
Dave sighed and headed to his room. Maybe he could come up with a few mixes before their job. He kept his turntables off to the side in his room, and stashed his record collection underneath the table that held the turn tables up. Dave knelt down on the floor and ran a hand across his records. He stopped at the ones that he thought would go good together and plucked them from their place on the shelf. By the time he was done he had picked out about ten records. He set to work mixing and scratching records and he was able to make a few demo tracks to check out later. The nice this about making mixes was that it had always calmed him down.   
He was pretty chilled out about what had happened in the graveyard until he heard the sound of something hitting the floor. He smoothly spun around to see that the camera that had been sheltered in his closet had tumbled to the floor. The cassette that had been neatly tucked into its slot had almost slipped out onto the floor. He scooped up the camera and was about to tuck it back into the closet when he changed his mind. He set it up in front of his bed like he had earlier in the day. He popped out the tape to check if it was still on the right side. Yup. It hadn’t been flipped around. He crawled into his bed and pressed record.  
“I don’t really know why I wanted to record another one of these things. It still seems kind of dumb that all I’m doing is talking to myself, alone in my room. ” Dave paused, unsure of what to say. “We’re going to investigate a restaurant later this week. Apparently there’s a poltergeist haunting the place. I actually like poltergeists; they always kind of reminded me of my Bro... the piece of shit was always messing with me. He had this ugly as fuck puppet named Lil’ Cal. And he had these things with these huge bulbous asses called ‘Smuppets’. Oh god I fucking hated those things.” He rubbed his eyes with both hands and smiled at the memories, “I don’t know what was worse, the fact that they squeaked when you brushed past them or that Bro would put one in our blender that was loaded with fake blood capsules. That shit was fucked up, man.” Dave’s smile vanished as he remembered how Bro had died. “Sometimes I miss him...  
“Even though Bro was an insufferable asshole, he was really the best Bro I could’ve ever had.” Okay he was definitely killing all the rules of cool right now. All of them. Dave kind of wished that he could just take everything he just said and stuff it back in his mouth, but yet... it seemed like every time he did one of these things, he felt pretty good about getting all that shit off of his chest.  
“But... it’s just really weird. I mean, it just feels like he’s still here. I’m still expecting him to come up behind me and scare the shit out of me. He was... pretty good at that.” Dave looked out at his window. It was nighttime by now, the faint moonlight filtering through the grimy window and the kudzu. Dave was mildly surprised that John hadn’t bothered to go outside and trim it back yet. Then again... with the way that John had been feeling lately made it even less surprising. “Sometimes I think he still keeps an eye on me even though he’s gone.” The tape clicked to an end.   
Dave leaned in front of the camera and plucked the tape out of it. He opened the drawer in his nightstand to retrieve a pen and labeled the first side “Tape 1” and the second side “Tape 2”. He pulled a box of clean cassette tapes he had found a little while earlier. He pulled out one and stuck it into the camera. He snapped the tripod closed and shoved it back in his closet along with the box.   
Dave flicked off the lights and tossed himself into bed. He rolled over onto his back and took off his pants. He sighed. Fuck pants. As far as he was concerned, pants were the root of all evil. He looked back out at the window. The moonlight continued to leak into his room, just as it did most nights since he had moved in with John. Dave wondered why he was even going to bed at all. It was only 11:34 at night. In all honesty, he would rather go out and get drunk off his ass. But something told him to just stay in bed and ignore the world for a solid eight to ten hours. Maybe it was Bro trying to be an overprotective ass. Or maybe Dave was really tired. Either way, he sank into a deep sleep.  
A woman stood in front of him, her eyes were covered by a red cloth. Her shoulder-length auburn hair swirled around her face in the faint breeze. She reclined against a boulder, her body covered in teal fabric that resembled silk. Her lips tipped up at the sight of Dave. She beckoned him closer. There was some familiar quality to her. Dave approached her and she patted a spot next to her on the stone. He joined her and they both looked up at the night sky. There stood a pale silhouette of the full moon. But... something nagged at Dave from the back of his head. Something was wrong. Why was the moon full? What was it that Rose had once told him jokingly? Something about spirits and the full moon. He scratched the back of his head. The girl beside him giggled and turned to look at him.   
She leaned forward and flat out kissed him. Her lips were soft against his; her lips parted and her tongue traced his mouth. Dave was incredibly startled and he was about to say something, but she took the opportunity to slip her tongue into his mouth. She leaned back and smirked. Rose’s quote resurfaced from his memory and he began to feel dizzy.  
“You know I read in a book that the half moons work for white magic and the full moon works for dark magic.” He couldn’t remember what she said after that, something along the lines of, it’s silly but it makes sense because blah, blah, blah. Dave put a hand to his forehead. The world began to spin, but the woman stayed in the same place. She was anchored to the center of his vision; she gently removed the cloth from her face. Her eyes were like solid red marbles that had been embedded into her skull. Dave scooted away and fell off the rock, scraping his hands on the ground. She looked down on him and the familiar face of a monster flooded his vision. Her long and yellowed teeth stuck out at odd angles. He remembered the previous dream and his heart thundered underneath his ribcage. His hands felt clammy as he backed away from her. She let out a laugh. It sounded like deformed tinkling bells, the white noise of a broken TV, and plates breaking. It made Dave’s skin crawl. He stood up and ran.  
Dave’s eyes snapped open and he sat up in bed. The room spun around him. He rubbed his eyes with one hand. He pushed his glasses up to rest on the top of his tousled hair. He felt sick. His hands began to shake and he clenched them partially to steady them and partially out of anger. His body was showing weakness and it made him very angry. There was the sound of something clattering down to the floor and Dave’s heart skipped several beats. It was right outside his door. He carefully crawled out of bed and began searching for a weapon. He peered underneath his bed and settled for the practice bamboo katana that he had shoved under it about two weeks prior after John had nailed him in the crotch. Dave moved his sunglasses down over his eyes. He held the sword in his right hand and took a deep breath, listening hard for anything.   
Footsteps on carpet. The back of Dave’s head was screaming for him to just go back to bed, ignore the world, do something other than just go to confront the possible intruder. He put his left hand on the door and opened it. John stood on the other side of the threshold. He looked like a sleep-deprived, startled deer. Dave wanted to bang his head into a wall. Who else would it fucking be? So stupid.   
“What.” Dave’s tone was neutral; deadpan. He acted like it was nothing to be wielding a bamboo katana in only a pair of boxer shorts and a shirt at two in the morning.   
John frowned, “I can’t sleep.”  
“What else is new?” Dave had to be John’s rock right now. He tried to go through his body and relax all of his muscles, but his shoulders still remained tense from the previous minute’s adrenaline rush. He had to stay cool, calm, and collected no matter how badly he wanted to puke of how shitty he felt.  
“C-can I just stay the night in here with you?” John’s eyes became anchored to his feet. “It just feels like someone is watching me. It’s kind of... unsettling.”  
“Yeah, you can chill in here for tonight, I guess.” Dave opened the door all the way and propped the sword against his bedside table. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”  
John’s frown deepened “No you’re not, I’ll sleep on the floor. I don’t mind.”  
Dave put a hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, “No, fuck Egbert. You’re the one who’s been having issues sleeping, so you should get the bed.”  
John balled his hands in his shirt, “We can just share.”  
Dave was a bit puzzled by his suggestion. He shrugged “Well... okay then.”  
Dave crawled back into bed and John followed close behind him. They both settled into bed, John getting the comforter and Dave getting the sheets to avoid any fighting. They lay next to each other; back to back. It was a bit cramped since Dave’s bed was a single. It was strange that there was a warm patch against Dave’s back, but he found a bit of comfort from it as well. It was just so weird to have a living, breathing person so close to him. Dave usually never kept anyone this close, but John was an exception. He’d helped Dave through thick and thin. John was perhaps one of the most important people in Dave’s life. Especially after Bro passed away.  
“Dave,” John’s voice was just above a whisper.   
“Yeah?”  
“I’m scared.”  
Dave sighed, “It’ll all be okay in the end, bro.”  
John went silent. Dave knew that something in his voice probably could have told him otherwise.


	6. Half of Tape 3

Dave’s eyes opened and he stared at the blank wall in front of him. He felt a pair of arms wrapped around his chest. He was about to roll over and punch the intruder in the face... but that was when he remembered it was John. He wasn’t sure whether to wake John up, but he felt John’s slow, cool breath against the back of his neck and decided against it. He knew it had been a while since John had had a few hour’s worth of solid shut eye, so they just stayed like that. Dave stared at the morning light filtering onto the wall, waiting for the other boy to wake. John stirred against Dave’s back and Dave mentally released a sigh of relief. That kid was starting to get hot and Dave’s shirt was beginning to cling to his back with sweat.   
John hugged Dave closer. Dave sighed. Poor kid. He hoped John wasn’t having a nightmare.   
“Dave.” John’s voice was faint.  
Dave’s stomach clenched, “Yeah, buddy?”  
“Thanks.”   
Dave bit his bottom lip, grateful that John couldn’t see his face, “No prob.”  
John gave him another hug before he released Dave and sat up. “You’re a good friend, Dave.”  
“I know, man.” Dave said to the wall. He had this slight tingling sensation in his chest. He honestly hoped to god that it wasn’t what he thought it was.  
John stood up and stretched and Dave sat up and turned to face his room. For once, it appeared that nothing in his room had been fucked with overnight without his supervision. Thank goodness.   
Dave felt a bit weak despite the fact that he had had a fairly restful sleep. John glanced at Dave, “You look kind of like a pile of shit.”  
“Thanks, asshole.” Dave grimaced slightly, “That’s almost exactly what I feel like.”  
John rolled his eyes and sat down on the bed next to Dave. He quickly put his hand to Dave’s moist forehead. “Dave, you might have a fever. You should really take your temperature.”  
“By that I think you mean you’re going to force a thermometer down my throat and almost kill me. Don’t you?”  
“Sounds about right.” John’s face stretched into a goofy grin and Dave sighed as John went out into the hall. The katana fell to the floor and John roughly closed the door. Dave stood and followed the little pipsqueak out into the hall. He ran a hand through his thoroughly mussed hair. The top of his head felt hot and sweaty. He mentally agreed with John that he should take his temperature. Not that he’d ever let John know that.  
John stood on his toes as he reached up into the cupboards that they kept the medicine-type stuff in. He made a satisfied grunt and he grabbed a little pouch that was filled to the brim with band-aids, rubbing alcohol, Aspirin, thermometers, and little bottles of holy water and herbs. He tugged it down and brought a few pill bottles down with it. He set it down on the counter and scrambled to pick up all of the pill bottles before they rolled onto the floor. God. That was so cute.  
Dave shook his head and erased the thought from his head. He did not like his best bro. He did not want to go down that road with John. Ever.   
John finally located the thermometer and Dave snatched it away from him. He stuck it in his mouth. John made a face at Dave and he ignored it. He leaned against the counter in a cool guy pose and propped the thermometer underneath his tongue. After about two minutes, Dave tugged the tube of glass from his mouth and checked it. One-hundred and one degrees.   
Dave read the number aloud and John reached up into the cabinet and brought out a bottle of water. Dave grabbed a glass from the cupboard from across the kitchen and set it down near John. The other boy filled the glass half-way up with the holy water and handed Dave two small pills. Dave downed the pills with all the water wordlessly. He had given up on arguing with John about drinking holy water with pills. It was standard protocol, no ifs, ands, or butts. Er... buts.  
Dave sighed for the nth time that day as he placed the glass down in the sink. He really didn’t want to stay home if GPI had a case. That reminded him.  
“Hey John, has that guy replied back to your email yet?”  
John looked surprised and headed into HQ. He plopped down into a seat and booted up the computer. He checked his email. “Yeah, he says he wants us to start the investigation tomorrow.”  
“Cool. Forward that shit to Rose and Jade and we can start prepping tonight.”  
“Will do.”  
Dave went to his room and grabbed the camera out of his closet. He tugged out the box of tapes as well. If he was going to take the camera on an investigation, he needed to find a tape that could record a few hours’ worth of footage. He pulled one from the pile. It was faintly labeled “4:13”. He found a pen and scribbled over the number. He swapped out the tape in his camera for the one he had found and pressed record.  
“We’re going to have a case.”  
He pressed stop and moved the camera to the far corner of his room. He shoved the box of tapes back in the closet. A knock sounded from the door and Dave turned away from the closet. John poked his head in. “Start packing, boy.” He stretched out the ‘y’ to make it sound like an ‘i’. He grinned and closed the door before Dave could say anything back.   
Dave went back to his closet and tugged out the old and bettered backpack that he had used for every investigation, and before that, every year at school. It was ancient, but it was one of the few relics that were evidence that his Bro had existed. Dave pulled open the zipper and gently put the camera in the bag. He attempted to organize all of the gear that was already in it, but gave up half way. He exited the room and went to the hallway closet. He retrieved a fresh pack of batteries and went back into his room. He shoved the batteries into his backpack and began the search for his red, white, and black hoodie. Where was that thing? He knelt down to check under his bed. Only Dust bunnies and a few wads of... were those napkins or tissues? Whatever. That’s not important. He shoved aside some dressy shirts in his closet. Not there. He yanked open the drawers of his dresser. God damn it, where was that thing?   
Dave was starting to freak out. That hoodie was very important to him; where the hell did it go off to? He ripped out the clothes from his dresser, scattering them all over the place. Not here. He burst out into the hallway. He yanked open the closet door and began to tear out the coats. How could it not be in here? Oh shit. Oh god. This is really bad. Dave’s eyes began to sting and he blinked away tears and tried to keep a straight face. Cool guys don’t cry. Cool guys never cry. Ever. Dave pushed the clothes back into the closet with his foot and slammed the door. John poked a worried head out into the hall.  
“...Dave?” his voice was small and hesitant.  
Dave pushed past the dark-haired man and knelt down to check underneath the computers. No, no, no, no , no, no, no. no. This was not happening, where could that damn thing be? Dave whirred around, trying his best to seem aloof and neutral. He stumbled out into the living room and began to uproot the couch. It had to be here. Oh god where was it? His chest felt tight and weighted. He left the living room in ruins as he went back to his bedroom and slammed the door behind him. Dave threw himself down onto his bed and hunched over his knees. He rubbed his eyes behind his shades with one hand.   
Don’t cry you stupid fucking pussy.  
Dave covered his mouth with his other hand and pinched his nose. It was all just a dream . Yeah, a stupid dream that would end soon. Dave’s chest heaved and he pinched his nostrils tightly. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. Bro said that cool guys don’t cry. Dave bit his lip and removed his hand from behind his shades when he felt moisture. He lost that battle. He covered his mouth and nose. Stay quiet. Soo everything will—  
A few knocks sounded on the wooden door, “Dave? Are you okay? Are you looking for the jacket?”  
“Go away.” Dave’s voice cracked on the last word and he cursed at himself.  
“Hey,” John gently opened the door, ignoring Dave’s request, “What’s wrong, Dave?”  
Dave turned away. “Fuck off, John.” His shoulders began to shake.  
John ignored Dave’s request once more and sat down next to him. He put a hand on Dave’s shoulder.  
“It’ll be okay.” John said quietly.   
Dave’s façade was almost broken as he said “No, Egbert it won’t be fucking okay! It won’t fucking be okay until I find Bro’s jacket.”  
John gave Dave’s shoulder a comforting squeeze before he stood up and walked out of the room. He returned a few minutes later with the jacket. It looked a lot better than it had. John looked away shyly as he passed the jacket to Dave, “I polished up some of the silk screening on it and sewed patches onto the elbows.”  
Dave held up the old jacket. The record design in the center looked like it was fresh off the screening presses. The elbows each had an orange patch that fit the jacket’s warm color theme perfectly. Dave clutched the article of clothing to his chest. It still smelled a little of Bro. Shitty ramen noodles, vinyl, and a little aftershave. Dave smiled against the fabric, making sure that John couldn’t see the majority of it. “Thanks John,” his mumble was garbled behind the jacket.   
“No problem Dave.”


	7. The Other Half of Tape 3

Dave stood behind Rose as they followed the annoyingly grouchy man around the restaurant. The man (Dave was told his name was Karkat) was really just giving them a tour while pointing out all of the places that have had possible paranormal activity. Dave made mental notes of where to put surveillance cameras and places to do EVPs.   
During all of this Dave couldn’t help but notice that Karkat kept checking John out. Dave felt something angry bubble up in his chest and tried his best to smother the feeling. This was why Dave almost always wore his shades; he was always able to catch things that other people couldn’t. Plus, not wearing his shades just felt unnatural at this point. Even though it had been a while since Bro died, Dave still refused to take off his shades.   
Time came and went, and soon it was time for the night time investigation.   
Dave was glad that he was able to strap one camera to his chest and hold the other one in his hand. He passed by one of the team’s still-mounted cameras at the end of the hall and gave it a brief nod. The walkie-talkie on his shoulder buzzed.  
“Hey, we’re going to do an EVP.” Jade’s voice sounded right in his ear. Dave tried his best to hide his cringe because of how loud the volume was.  
He turned the volume knob, lowering the sound of John’s reply, “Uh, okay. Where are you guys?”  
“Kitchen.” Rose muttered.  
John chuckled, “Alright, Dave you know the rules.”  
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Dave turned back around and began to make his way to head quarters. This is what they normally did, especially since they were in a building. There’s no use in having an EVP when someone else ruins it by making noise.  
Dave tugged out a metal folding chair from the folding table that John was sitting at. He sat down roughly, instantly regretting it due to the fact that the chair was ice cold. Dave resisted letting out a yelp. He leaned over into John’s personal space to try and see the still cameras that were displayed on the monitor.  
“Move.” John whispered as he playfully jabbed Dave in the back with his index finger.  
Dave ignored him. “Where are they?”  
John rolled his eyes “Maybe if you’d move out of the way and take off those silly shades I could show you.”  
“Found them.” Dave pointed at one of the squares on the monitor. He sat back down and leaned back in his chair, obviously content.  
John punched Dave in the arm, “You dork.”  
Dave smirked and twined his fingers together behind his head, “Look in a mirror and say that.”  
John pouted and turned back to the computer. He double clicked the square that Dave had pointed out earlier and it expanded to full screen. John fussed with the camera a bit more and suddenly, the audio turned on. It was a little hard to hear what the girls were saying, so Dave scooted his chair closer to John. Their legs were almost touching and Dave felt something flutter slightly in his chest. He smothered it.  
Rose’s way of dealing with spirits was a lot more formal than any of the other people on the team, and they often ended up with the best results because Rose was very sensitive towards spiritual activity. Plus she was always very respectful of the spirits and never pushed them to do things that they didn’t want to do. For that’s, she would always have a decent chunk of Dave’s professional respect. She looked into blank space, a knowing grin spreading across her face “Hello. How are you this evening?”  
She paused a moment, “I see. How did you die, if you don’t mind me asking?” – Another pause—“Really? That’s terrible. I’m so sorry. So, is there any particular reason why you’re still here to stick around?”  
“That’s very sweet.” Rose smiled a little, “So you just want him to know that you’re here. Would you like us to tell him for you? Very well. I will personally deliver the message to him. I swear it.”  
Rose reached her hand out into the air, as if she were resting it on someone. “You are too sweet to be dead Miss Megido. I’m so sorry.” She took her hand away and rested it in her lap. “Oh. I see. Where does he stay? All right. We will go there next so he will leave you in peace.” Rose stood and took a respectful bow and grabbed her recorder. She shooed Jade out of the room and they closed the door behind them.  
Dave squinted at what he had just witnessed on the monitor. Something was coming into focus OH SHIT.  
The face of a girl was staring right into the camera, her expression neutral. There was a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. She was paler than snow and her mouth moved as she said one word: “careful”. Her face was gone.  
Dave felt like someone had dumped as bucket of ice down the back of his shirt. And for all he knew, someone could have. He felt frozen as he stared at the green computer screen. His shoulders shook as they tensed. He felt like eyes were boring into his back, fire onto the ice that rolled onto his back in sheets. He stood up, not even feeling the weight of the camera strapped to his chest, or the camera that he held in his hand. He had to move, he had to move or he would suffocate under the sheets of fire and ice. He remembered mentioning something about going to the basement to John and he practically ran out to the door to the basement.  
He pressed his head against the wooden door and tried to steady himself. It was always nice to go into a place with your shit together so the spirits wouldn’t try to get too much of a jump on you. He took deep breaths and was able to back away from the door. He sat against the wall across from the door, trying to steady his nerves.   
Everything seemed like it was falling apart at the loosely woven seams, especially after Bro’s death. That was when everything fell apart. That was when Dave felt the need to hide everything behind a pair of shades that John had given him long ago on his thirteenth birthday. The shades had been a joke, but now they were the things that kept Dave’s universe from completely falling apart. He had become a master at seeing with polarized lenses and only polarized lenses. To him, there was just no other option anymore. The shades weren’t a choice; they were his life line. He rubbed his eyes.  
His rocky façade was beginning to crumble because of fucking ghosts. Because of bullshit that didn’t exist. A small voice argued back for him to explain the girl on the monitor. That was the biggest problem of all.  
He couldn’t.  
He picked himself back up off of the floor, trying his best to put on his brave face and pick up the pieces of his broken mind. He rested a hand on the ice cold door knob. He put a hand to the walkie-talkie on his shoulder.  
“I’m headed to the basement.”  
There was a bit of feed back as John replied “You want one of the girls to come with you?”  
Dave hesitated, “... Naw. I’m good.”  
“Well, okay.” John sighed through the speaker.  
Dave took a steadying breath and turned the knob. Something in the back of his head told him to get someone else to come with him, or better yet not go down there at all. Karkat had said that the basement was the place that had most of the brunt of the activity. Especially at night. Dave turned the camera in his hand back to face himself. He made a face and turned it back to the door. He pushed the door open and it creaked. God that was creepy. He shined his light down the wooden stairs. Something shifted down and the bottom of the stairs and Dave quickly took a step back, trying to keep his cool intact. Dave wondered if it had been a shadow person.  
Dave stepped forward again, even more hesitant about entering the basement. He took yet another steadying breath and put one foot on the stairs. He took another step. The wooden stairs creaked, much to Dave’s irritation. Dave sighed and booked it down the stairs, each one of them creaking and whining with every step he took until his feet reached concrete. Boy, he had never hated wooden stairs so much in his life.   
He held up the camera in his hand, the light shining over the dry food that the restaurant stored on dozens of shelves lining the walls. Pale moon light filtered through the grubby windows that were high up on the wall.   
Dave nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard a scuffling noise and then a loud snap. He shined his flashlight over to the corner where he heard the snap, only to find a recently decapitated rat caught in a trap. Dave grimaced.  
After admiring the dead rat, Dave decided to get down to work. He sat down in the center of the room and set out his recorder, he settled the cassette-recording camera next to it and jammed his thumb into the record button.  
He took a quivering breath, “Hey,”  
No response.  
“Who are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”  
The light on Dave’s cassette-recording camera began to flicker. Dave’s lips twitched downward.  
“Please don’t mess with my camera. It’s not okay.”  
The flickering stopped.  
“Thank you.” Dave sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “So... why are you here? I heard that you like to mess with the employees. Is that right?”  
A slight breeze whispered past Dave’s ear. “Wrong.”  
Dave wanted to vomit. He blinked rapidly behind his glasses and tried to understand what just happened. He was pretty sure he just heard someone whisper the word “wrong” in his ear, but ghosts didn’t exist, so that couldn’t be possible. He decided that he was done with this cold-ass basement. He stood up, or at least, tried to. He couldn’t move. His heart felt someone was squeezing it; his head began to pound. He couldn’t speak.  
His heart thundered in his ears. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. His gaze dragged across the room, looking for something to save himself with. He almost had hope until he saw it.   
As his gaze flicked up towards the grubby window, he saw something slide through it. It was black and misty and it settled to the ground below the window, unmoving, but managing to fade in and out of the shadows. Dave felt like his gut was filled with ice. He didn’t know what that thing was, but he knew it wasn’t good. Everything in him screamed for him to run; for him to run as fast as he could, but he couldn’t. He stared at the mist, terrified and frozen. His terror only increased as it began to take form. It began to grow and expand into the shape of a person, but the anatomy was all wrong. The arms were different lengths, the legs were different thicknesses, and even the head looked like it had spikes growing off of the top.   
It moved closer to him, closing the distance quickly. It stopped halfway and titled its head. Eyes began to form. Round, red eyes that glowed like the tail lights of a car, and sat in the mist like two solid red marbles. It grinned. It wasn’t a conventional grin, more like sharp teeth that appeared from the mist and stretched apart and stuck out in all different directions.   
Dave felt sick as he tried to fight his paralysis. The thing continued forward and grabbed his throat, its deformed hands felt like ice that was so cold it burned. It lifted him up off of his feet, the disgusting grin still present. Dave could smell it now; it smelled like the rotting dead, its hot breath was like brimstone. Its hand closed tighter around Dave’s throat and he began to grow weak. Dave coughed. He gave one last feeble attempt to move and found that he could move his hand and mouth. He lifted his hand to his walkie-talkie and whispered to the monster “Christo.”


	8. You notice just how many tapes there are.

Dave was cold.  
Everything was cold and dark, and quite frankly, he was very scared. He bunched his fists up in his shirt to try and find something steady in this unknown environment. He honestly wanted to cry because he hadn’t been this scared since Bro—  
Oh yeah.  
Bro.  
He sighed.  
It had been a while since he had dared to face the events that had caused his brother’s death. Even then he had never really dared to face them. Dave winced as the memories flared out behind his eyes. The fleeting warmth of Bro’s hand, the crashing noises, opening the door only to—  
Enough was enough, he decided.  
Dave gnawed on the inside of his cheek. Where was he anyway? He felt colder, somehow, realizing just how lonely this desolate landscape was. Where ever he was. Suddenly his face felt very cold and wet, as if it had broken out into a cold sweat, but his hands and toes were sort of warm. Nothing really made sense. It was like he was in some weird backwards land. He felt like something was pulling him forward urging him to walk the directionless land; only it wasn’t dark nothingness anymore. The more he walked, the more the nothingness changed into something recognizable. The ground beneath his feet turned to concrete and the landscape at his sides became the concrete buildings of downtown Houston, Texas. His hometown. He glanced up at where his old apartment had been, deciding to not visit the memories that lived there now. He kept walking until the concrete became a little lighter and shadier. The college campus where he used to go to school at. He inwardly cringed at his not-so-cool performance after Bro died. He had hidden away in his room for weeks at a time; trying to find anything to get rid of the anguish until John, Rose, and Jade dragged him out, literally kicking and screaming. How pathetic. He kept walking.  
Dave decided that there really was nothing left for him in his memories anymore, unless he counted those small moments with John. John laughing, smiling, cracking lame as fuck jokes. John being, well, John. Those were the real and quite honestly the only memories that Dave lived for at this point.  
Dave kept walking. He was barely even aware that his feet were even moving anymore, he was only aware of the fact that he was being pulled through the ever-changing landscape to something important. At the moment, he was heading down the tunnel with a very bright light at the end. He wondered briefly if he was dead. He hoped not, he never got the chance to say anything to John, let alone kiss the current most important guy of his life.  
Dave was soaked in the white light radiating from the end of the tunnel. He took another step and his eyes began to flutter.  
Dave spasmed as his breathing faltered for a few seconds. He fell over, his world beginning to spin and grow dimmer. He felt something warm gripping his shoulder and shaking it. He wished that it would stop.  
He stared up at the concrete ceiling. What had just happened? He shook his head and found that it hurt. The hand was still resting on his shoulder. He turned to shoot the owner of the hand a glare, only to find it was John. Dave felt his heart give a squeeze. John looked terrified. Dave resisted all urges to just hug John, and hung his head in his hands instead. He heaved a heavy sigh and looked back up at all of his friends. They all shared a similar look of worry. Dave felt something catch in his throat.  
He opened his mouth to speak, but instead he coughed... and coughed... and coughed. He felt his hand dampen more with each cough until it was soaking with spit. He pulled his hand away from his lips, his throat feeling dry and sand paper-y. It was dark. He stared down at his hand in disbelief. Dave’s head began to spin as he tried to back away from the blood on his hand.  
This isn’t happening. No. No. No. No. No.  
He bumped into some crates behind him and he jumped. He coughed again and brought his other hand up to catch the blood falling from his lips with every rough heave of his chest. Dave felt his eyes sting as he remembered about Bro. Bro getting sick and coughing up blood. He flinched away from the firm recollection of the memory, fighting back tears. He felt a hand on his wrist and tried to jerk away from it. Nobody should be touching him. Nobody.  
Dave stared down at the blood on his hands, unmoving. His head spun. And somewhere within it all, he blacked out.  
More bright lights blinded Dave.  
God, he was really starting to hate fucking white lights.  
His hands felt damp and clammy and his hair felt oily and mussed. His gaze flicked around the room he was in. But then his nose registered the smell. Illness, antiseptic, and tongue depressors. The hospital.  
Dave reared away from his bed, jostling the hand that held his own, only to be pushed down into the bed and given a shot. He slumped within a few seconds and was rearranged into a more comfortable position on the bed, the sheets pulled up to his shoulders. He glared at the hand that held his, only his face sort of awkwardly drooped. He looked up at its owner.  
John.  
Dave felt his heart flutter and his chest tighten. He wished that he could have been the strong one. But no, he was the one in this bed and John was holding his hand looking like he was blaming himself.  
And Dave hated it.  
John squeezed Dave’s hand reassuringly and gave him a small grin, “Hey.”  
“Hey,” Dave’s words were a bit slurred. Probably the pain medication. Fuck.  
John’s smile grew a bit bigger at Dave’s reply, “You’ve been asleep for four days.”  
Dave frowned, “Well shit. I bet you had to sit here and watch them clean the drool offa my face.” Dave was losing his cool. But somehow, he didn’t care that much. Must be the drugs.  
“Heh, yeah.” John smiled. His smile faded. “Dave.”  
“Yuh.”  
“What do you remember?”  
Dave’s eyebrows pulled together behind his shades, “Uh... I remember shadows and nails and uh...”-he swallowed thickly-“Red eyes.”  
“Oh,” Was all John replied with. He looked away guiltily, as if he did something wrong. “You were attacked. We...” John fell silent.  
“Wee what?” The drugs were almost in full swing.  
John shifted uncomfortably in his chair “We think it was the same thing that killed Bro.”  
Dave felt like the muddled hell in his brain had just frozen over. Due to his current physical condition, he was slow to respond, his eyelids beginning to droop “What.”  
“Yeah...” John looked really upset now, but Dave stopped caring once his eye lids began to shut.  
Dave slumped into his pillow and drifted off for the second time that week.


	9. You boredly pick another out of the box.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upd8!

Dave stared up at the grey apartment building. He knew he’d have to visit his memories sometime. He decided to put it off for a bit. He turned to the right and meandered off through the concrete jungle that eventually morphed into a park. Hermann Park.   
Dave glanced around, wondering what would find him in Hermann Park. His eyes landed on two boys, only in high school, pelting ducks with bread. One was him, and the other had dual-colored specs, teeth that stuck out funny, and a lisp. His heart plummeted.  
Sollux.  
Even though it had been a very long time since Dave had seen him, he still felt upset every time he saw the adorable nerd. The two of them had dated all throughout high school and had broken up when Dave had decided to go to school in Georgia and when Sollux ended up being asked out by some guy called “Eridan” or something along those lines.  
He frowned as he watched himself and the half-blind boy pelt helpless birds with bread balls. He missed being like that. So carefree and weightless. Being able to smile without it being ironic or stupid. That was what it felt like whenever he was with John. He sighed and continued past the happy couple.  
He trailed along the huge lake that surrounded the park, only to have the scenery transform into bleak, grey city streets. He stopped and looked up at the familiar apartment building, eyeing it cautiously. It seemed as though it wanted him to face his memories. He heaved yet another sigh and gnawed on his cheek, debating the possibilities. After a sufficient amount of deliberation, he decided the head in. Sooner, rather than later.  
He poked the metal double doors open with his shoulder and peered inside the run down lobby. It was empty. As per usual, the desk clerk was slacking off. What an asshole. Dave shuffled to the elevator and jabbed the “Up” button with his finger, the once prominent up arrow worn away by many fingers. The elevator dinged immediately and opened, its yellow light looking cheerful, considering the poorly maintained surroundings. Dave felt a strong breeze (figuratively) tug at his hair and clothes, as if the ghosts of paramedics still ran Bro down to the ambulance continually. Dave clenched his hands in his shirt while trying to keep them from gathering a grotesque amount of sweat.   
Gotta keep your cool. He reminded himself.  
He stepped into the elevator and poked the button for the top floor. He felt the heat rise in his ears as the elevator rose. His stomach clenched and unclenched, tying itself in knots, and doing back flips and somersaults over and over and over again. He wished it would stop. His hands clenched tightened in his shirt as he became nauseous. He forced himself to try and calm down, but that only made things worse, and now the elevator was swinging gently from side to side, like he was standing in a boat. Dave stumbled and used a wall to steady himself.  
The doors dinged open and Dave gripped the side of the elevator with his clammy hands, trying as hard as he could to not throw up or pass out or some combination of the two. He fell to the ground, the world swinging about him. Dave tried his best to push himself up and hold his head between his knees. He tried to take deep breaths to steady himself. Soon, the world came to a stop and Dave was able to pull himself up and lean against the water-stained walls. He swallowed the bile from the back of his throat and began to mentally brace himself as he walked along the walls to his apartment. Dave clenched one fist as he retrieved the hidden spare key from above the door frame. His hands began to shake and he shoved one in his pocket and used the other to turn the key in the lock. He clenched his hand in his pocket, hoping to find comfort.  
He didn’t.  
He opened the door very slowly, understanding what he was about to relive again for the thousandth time. A strange smell washed over him, somewhat metallic and sickly. He swallowed more bile.  
He felt his shoe step in a puddle, and was stupid enough to look down.   
It was red.  
Dave felt tears begin to flow down his face. Real tears. He stumbled forward into the living room and saw this big Bro’s form collapsed on the floor, a huge gash punched through the center of his chest. Dave began to feel as if he was detached from his body, floating, watching himself as he ran. He watched as he collapsed over his Bro’s form, disbelief and agony painted across his face. He remembered the thoughts that had run through his head.  
Bro couldn’t be dead. He could never die.  
He stood up and the world began to spin again and finally Dave fell down to his hands and knees and vomited. Once, twice, three times. His eyes watered as his stomach dry heaved and he found the will to pull himself up and shuffle over to the sink. He washed his mouth out with water over and over again, trying to get the taste of bile out of his mouth. At the sink, his warm tears on the right side of his face gathered in the side of his eye socket and nose, whereas on the left side they slid freely down his face to mingle with the water in the sink.  
During the entire time, as many swears and curses ran through Dave’s head than he thought were possible, repeating on end, like a thousand broken records all playing in the same room, their phrases all overlapping until it all just becomes a grotesque and wordless chant. He turned away from the sink, trying to ignore the acidic bite of the scent of fresh puke. Dave braced his hands against the counter, only briefly removing one to wipe the extra water from his mouth.  
Dave watched his Bro’s hunched form and mechanically dialed 911 on his cell phone, barely even processing what was going on. He told the operator his address and then the line cut off abruptly. He held the phone away from his ear and the battery died. His stomach clenched.  
He braced himself for what was bound to happen next.   
He heard a hiss. The sound of a single word tracing through the room was enough to make Dave want to vomit again if he wasn’t paralyzed with fear.   
“Mine.”  
A form separated from his Bro’s shadow. It was hideous. The upper back hunched over and the skin was stretched too tightly over its bones, making them appear to almost crawl out of its dingy flesh. The face was covered with a black veil, its huge vermillion eyes taking in everything, as if it were going to eat it next. Yellowed teeth shredded the veil towards the bottom and Dave could see that it had difficulty setting its slightly unhinged jaw back in place. It had long sickly, thin arms with not hands, but two short talons and one long, raptor-like one growing from where its index finger should have been. The feet were almost transparent, but were very filthy human feet, their nails crusted black with ages of dirt. The legs were even thinner and longer than the arms, and the body had a black, ragged cloth that covered it from chest to mid thigh.  
To say that Dave was horrified would have been understatement.  
He mentally screamed at his legs to move, but they froze and locked in place.   
The monster leaned over Bro and licked Bro’s arm. Dave felt like he was going to throw up again, but was able to hold it back. He moved slowly along the counter until he reached the spice cabinet. His fear gnawed and twisted his insides as he felt around for a certain container. Dave watched as the thing began to try to eat his brother. His hand touched the salt container. He very carefully pulled the tab open and began to move towards the monster. It only got worse the closer Dave got to it. It reeked of rotting flesh and the meat between its teeth squelched and slurped.   
When Dave was in range, he drew his hand back and began to throw salt at the demon. It began to scream. The screams were practically glass shattering and left Dave’s ears ringing. Where the salt touched, the demon’s skin caught an unearthly blue fire. Its yellow eyes burned even brighter than the fire. It was soon engulfed in blue flame, all while screaming. It burned away to nothing, and the scream faded.  
Everything happened in a blur after that. Dave called the paramedics and was rushed to the hospital...  
Wait.  
Hospital...  
Something about the hospital... and... John!  
John was at the hospital waiting for him.  
And at long last, Dave woke up again.


	10. The number strikes you as odd, yet familiar.

Dave’s eyes fluttered slightly before snapping open. His gaze flicked around the room, only to reveal that his hospital room was empty and drab as ever. No one was here with him and that upset him. No Rose, no Jade... no John...   
He shook his head and settled down into his bed. He felt like shit. Everything hurt and was sore. All he wanted to do now was to get up and run around. Or strife it out on the roof like he used to with Bro. Either way, he couldn’t because he was plugged into a million and one machines, all beeping and dripping and whirring away. Okay, well not a million. More like five machines. Dave stared absent mindedly down at the needles dripping IV fluid into his wrist. It was honestly kind of gross. He sighed. He had only been awake for a minute and already he was bored out of his mind. Woo. Fucking. Hoo.   
Maybe there was a remote somewhere so he could turn on the wall mounted TV? Yeah, there was one on the table next to him. Dave reached over feebly, just barely being able to snatch it off of the table top. He turned on the TV and proceeded to flip through the channels. The channels were as drab as the room. Finally, Dave just decided to sleep. Only, it wasn’t really the good kind of sleep; it was more like the kind of sleep he would get if he closed his eyes for a while on the Metro Bus, or if he simply rested his eyes for a bit. Either way, he was still bored.   
Dave probed his thoughts in the silence that seeped into his bones. He wondered where John was at this point in time. It made him a bit sad to know that John wasn’t by his side, silently cheering him on. But then again, that meant that John was worrying over him, and that was the last thing Dave wanted John to do. Dave sighed, sticking annoyance on top of the growing pile of conflicting emotions.   
A knock sounded at the hospital room door and Dave closed his eyes. He heard the door swing open and at least two pairs of footsteps approach his bedside.  
“...should have woken up by now.”  
“Why hasn’t he?” A familiar voice. John.  
“We don’t know.”  
Silence.  
“Is there something wrong with his brain?”  
“No, the MRI and x-ray came out clean.”  
Silence again.  
“Look, kid. If you want my own opinion, sitting here worrying about it isn’t going to help you. You should go home and get a good night’s rest before you end up like this guy. He’ll be fine.”  
Retreating footsteps and then the sound of a door closing.  
Dave heard John shuffle towards the chair by his bedside and plop down into it. He heaved a heavy sigh before settling down into the chair. After a few minutes of heavy silence, Dave opened his eyes and slightly turned his head towards John. He watched the nervous wreck of a boy sit uncomfortably in rumpled clothes and abnormally messy hair. His eyes had thick, dark circles under them and above all, John looked excruciatingly tired. He looked miserable and worried. Dave immediately began to feel bad for wishing John was with him when he woke up. He just wanted for John to go home and sleep.  
Dave inhaled sharply as he watched John from the corner of his eye. He was grateful that he still had his shades on. John sat more attentively, hoping for a response or anything really.   
Dave twitched his fingers and curled and uncurled his toes methodically. He heaved a breath and slowly pushed himself up. He cleared his throat, trying to remove some of the mucus that had built up there.   
“Hey,” his voice was below a whisper and almost sounded like a hiss. It was clear that Dave had been asleep for a very long time.  
John rushed forward and hugged Dave. Dave was startled, but after a moment he wrapped his arms around John’s shaking form. John’s voice was broken and jagged, “They—They said... you wouldn’t wake up.” He sobbed, “They... They... you’re not dead!” He swallowed thickly.  
Dave could feel his shirt become moist with John’s tears. “We were all so worried.”—He sobbed a few times—“Dave I--”  
“Shh” Dave hugged him closer, “Dude, it’s okay. Shh.”  
John smiled into Dave’s hospital gown, “I know.” He coughed.  
They stayed like that for a long time. And during that time, Dave hoped that John hadn’t noticed his heart monitors beeping twofold.


	11. You debate if you should even watch it in the first place.

After Dave had been checked out of the hospital, he had been recording video diaries almost non-stop. He didn’t know why, he just did. He was almost always on camera when he was alone. The reason? He had been blanking out. It seemed that within the past month, he had been fighting with John and not even remembering it. He didn’t even know why they were fighting. Not only that, but he had become more angry as well. The atmosphere in their apartment was heavy with anger and hatred. It pained him to know that this was how they were treating each other. But somehow, he couldn’t find it in him to forgive John and he didn’t know why. It was all very draining.  
Today, in particular hadn’t been a good day for Dave. For starters, he began the day by throwing up into the toilet. Then, when he went to buy groceries, there was a ridiculous amount of traffic going to and from the store. He also stepped in a giant wad of gum and when he tried to scrape it off of his shoe over a sewer grate, his shoe fell into the grate. Which had a small puddle at the bottom. At least he was able to untwist a hanger he found in the trunk of his car to retrieve his now soggy—and smelly—shoe. All of that had, as usual, surmounted into anger.  
Dave slammed the door shut to the apartment, to which John responded with an annoyed groan.   
“What?” Dave snapped.  
John’s tone matched his, “Do you really have to slam the goddamn door? I mean for fuck’s sake it didn’t do anything to you.”  
Dave rolled his eyes behind his shades, “Fuck you, John.”  
Dave couldn’t believe the words had even rolled out of his mouth. He couldn’t help it. Whenever him and John fought, it was like he was divided into two different entities: what came out of his mouth and what he really felt like.   
John looked hurt, “You know what Dave? I hate you. I fucking hate you.”  
“Then why don’t you just move the fuck out!” Dave raised his voice, which was something very out of character. He tried to reign in his anger, but it seemed to have a mind of its own.  
“Maybe I will you sack of shit!”  
After that, Dave blanked out.   
John huffed angrily at Dave. “Fuck you.” John’s voice was low and held only a fraction of his pain and fury. Dave didn’t move for roughly ten seconds. When he did it was to pin John to the wall. John struggled against Dave’s suddenly super-human grip.   
John soon felt his anger be eaten away by fear.   
“Don’t you dare try to do anything, shit face.” Dave removed one hand from one of John’s wrists and slowly took off his sunglasses. John was uncomfortable with the fact that Dave was doing that willingly in the first place. Something was very, very wrong. Dave’s eyes were closed when he tossed the sunglasses sadly off to the side. He moved only inches from John’s face before snapping them open. John immediately began to feel nauseous. Dave’s eyes were red. Not with red irises, not blood shot. Solid red. Like glass marbles. He began to laugh as John’s heart plummeted. That was not a human laugh. It was a broken and raspy giggle. John’s reaction only made him laugh harder.   
“Wow, paranormal investigator my ass,” Dave’s mouth said. “You couldn’t even find me when I was right under your nose. You’re so fucking stupid.” It giggled again.  
“What are you.” John whispered. It wasn’t a question, it was demand.  
It turned Dave’s head to the side and grinned disgustingly, “A succubus. Duh!” It winked. “You’re so smart! Wow! I wonder how you didn’t get all A’s in college?” It turned serious, “But now I’m hungry.”  
It leaned into his face and inhaled with a slight pleasure “I’m so very hungry. Maybe perhaps you”—Dave’s hand ran down John’s arm and under his chin, forcing John to look the demon in the face—“Can feed me?” It smiled again.  
It leaned into John’s face and kissed him. The kiss was soft and contemplative at first, but quickly intensified from there. Dave’s teeth nipped at John’s bottom lip. His tongue dragged lightly along John’s bottom lip. Although John did enjoy this, he had to work to suppress his pleasure. Dave’s eyes never closed and they stared intently into John’s. It was disgusting for John to have to stare into those wet, red eyes that were embedded into his crush’s face.   
Dave’s face moved down John’s neck and John flushed. His tongue brushed John collar bone and John shuddered. He felt a bulge begin to grow in his pants and tried his best to suppress his emotions. Shit.   
“What’s wrong, John?” Dave’s voice taunted huskily. “don’t you know this is what Dave has wanted to do to you for the longest time?”   
John turned his face away “Yeah, right.”  
Dave’s lips were suddenly at John’s ear, “I know how he feels, John.” His breath was hot in John’s ear. “I know what he wants. Who he wants. And trust me. He. Wants. You.” A tongue traced down the outside of John’s ear. John inhaled sharply. “And I can tell that you want him, John.” A smile.  
Dave’s lips smashed into John’s again, only this time John didn’t resist. He leaned into Dave’s grip, wanting more. A voice in the back of his head wanted him to stop and to pull away, but he couldn’t.   
Dave’s lips flew away from John’s suddenly.  
Dave’s blank-out finally ended.  
John opened his eyes as Dave’s hands released his wrists. Dave was lying down on the floor, his hands over his face, trying to hide his eyes and trying to scoot away from John. He turned his head to the side, shielding his eyes from John. He heard a thud, but ignored it. He reached for his sunglasses and whipped them onto his face. He then turned and ran into his room and locked the door.   
Dave slid down the door and tossed his sunglasses away. He began to cry.   
He wanted to stop the cascade of tears, but he didn’t. He held his breath and crawled over to his turntables and put on a record; he didn’t care what, just something that would drown out his sobbing. Once the music was safely blasting away, Dave curled up on his bed and cried.  
What is wrong with me? I’m a fucking monster. John is going to hate me and he isn’t going to fucking forgive me.   
Each angry thought was a blow to his heart and each angry thought vibrated to his body in beat with the music. He coughed and sobbed with each one; and with each one he tried to unsuccessfully hold everything in and to be strong. He really wanted to be strong, but right now he was simply broken.


	12. You decide to watch it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got rid of my writer's block. :3

John sank down to the floor, both hands pressed against his mouth. His face felt like a furnace and everything that Dave had touched felt even hotter. He covered his face, ashamed that he had lost his self control over a stupid succubus.

He rammed the side of a shaky fist into the wall behind his back. He felt like crying. His chest hurt. His stomach hurt. Everything ached for Dave. A loud pulsating beat began to hum from Dave’s room and John knew that his roommate was feeling just as awful as he was. After a few songs, John pulled himself up and shakily moved towards Dave’s room. He leaned against Dave’s door and spoke softly.

“Hey,”

The volume of the music dimmed.

“It’s not your fault Dave.”

Silence. Not even the music was playing now.

“I just wanted to say that…I…love you.”

No reply.

“I love you, Dave.” John’s voice cracked.

No reply still. John stepped back from the door.

The door swung open and behind it stood Dave. His shades were shoved up into his hair, making it all disheveled. His freckled face was smeared with tears and his shockingly red eyes bored straight into John’s.  He ran out of the room and into John. They fell onto the floor together, Dave buried his face in the crook of John’s neck. He sobbed something along the lines of “I’m so fucking sorry” and John exhaled.

He ran a hand through Dave’s hair. “It’s okay. Shh… shh… we can fix this. It’s okay, Dave.”

"I love you, John."


	13. Tape 413

Dave closed his eyes as Rose removed the sunglasses from his face. He heard the shifting of salt and oil as she closed the circle. There was a soft click of a record button, marking the four hundred thirteenth and final video log. Dave inhaled quietly and focused on the smell of the burning herbs and trying to find the thing that was anchored to him. He also tried to ignore the fact that his friend had tied his hands behind him “just in case”. But to be fair, they probably would help him not destroy the salt circle. Maybe.

After a few minutes, Dave felt himself fade away.

John stared down at Dave nervously. Dave had stopped moving for several minutes now. He felt bad about tying Dave’s hands together, but it was to make sure that nothing too bad would happen to the only thing keeping them from the demon.

The room was dark and Dave’s figure was outlined by the candlelight. His index finger twitched and he exhaled heavily. John swallowed and glanced at Rose and Jade. They were silent and sat like stones, staring down at Dave with their brows creased. John swallowed again and returned his gaze to Dave.

Dave sat up silently. His eyes were still closed. He hunched forward and opened his mouth into a silent scream. He strained his arms against his bonds and finally went limp after a minute. He was laying face down on the floor, his nose ground into the hard wood. He turned his head to the side and then rested his chin on the floor. At long last, his eyes snapped open to reveal the familiar red marbles. A grin stretched across his face.

“Hello, friends.”

The three figures around the circle were silent.

“What, you just gonna leave me hanging?” The succubus pouted. “That’s so rude.”

It rolled over onto its back and turned to face John.

“John?” It looked sad.

John’s blue eyes matched the blues of ice, “Get out of my best friend.”

“After all that, John? Am I really just a friend? Oh, that hurts John.”

“Fuck you.”

“You do realize that that does little to scare me.”

“I should brand you with iron.”

It sat up, annoyed. “You do realize that an iron will hurt me, but it will not scare me.”

It stood. “I have seen hell. I am the stuff of your worst nightmares.

You do not scare me, dipshit, and you never will.”

John had had enough. He snapped open his journal.

“In the name of all that is holy,”

The demon screamed.

“I command you to leave the body of my best friend, Dave Strider.”

The candles flickered as a breeze picked up.

“In the spirit of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,”

The scream grew louder, and so did John. John stood up and looked it in the face.

“Get out.”

In a smooth motion, it lunged towards John, and ran into an invisible wall, the scream increasing impossibly in volume.  Its hands clawed at a non-existent wall. Dave’s canines seemed to increase in length.

The candles blew out and the screaming halted. The room was dark. There was a feeble whisper. “My name isn’t Get Out.” There was a snapping noise and a flame danced above Dave’s fingertip.

Only, the human in the circle didn’t look human anymore. Its teeth were long and sharp and its fingernails matched. Its skin was pale and sickly and disgusting. It smiled and the shadow of a forked tongue moved behind its teeth.

It held up both hands. “You. Lose.” Another smile. “Dave dies.”

It took its fore claw and dragged it along the pale inside of Dave’s arm, leaving a trail of black liquid in the dim light. It held Dave’s arm out to the side, cocked its head to the opposite side and smiled wider. The blood dripped onto the floor into small splatters. The room was silent.

“Dave is going to die, John, and you can’t do anything about it.” It began to laugh.

Rose stood up. “I have to say that that is enough, dear.”

The succubus’ smile vanished and it turned to face Rose. Its eyes grew wide, “You.”

“Yes,” Rose said, “Me. Now I’d like to say that we’ve had enough of your ludicrous games, Aequivalere.”

It looked terrified “How… my name.” It sat down on the maple hardwood floor.

She smirked “It takes a bit, but asking around never hurt anyone.”

John began to speak again.

“In the name of all that is holy, I command you to leave the body of my best friend, Dave Strider.”

The demon began to scream again and John felt his teeth rattle in his jaw. Its eyes practically bugged out of Dave’s skull, a vein began to bulge in Dave’s forehead.

“In the spirit of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I command you, Aequivalere, to be banished to the fires of hell for eternity. Get out!”

The demon’s scream was impossibly loud and it sank to the ground. It’s eyes caught fire. Not a red or orange fire, but teal and blue flames shot out as it screamed. It reached out to towards the salt in front of John, it’s skin bubbling aggressively where the salt touched. The scream faded away and it twisted up and out of Dave’s mouth and nose, a giant black swirling mass with two flaming red eyes. The cloud smashed into the ceiling, grinding up until it and its scream began to fade.

After a few minutes the room was silent.

John fell down to his hands and knees and stared down at the ground. “Dave?”

Dave turned towarsd John limply, his face and body back to normal. “Yeah?” his voice was thick.

John looked up and threw himself across the circles. He pulled Dave up into his arms and tried to cover the cut with his hand.

“Dude, no. You can’t die.” His hand was sticky with blood. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

“Hey,” Dave looked up into John’s eyes. “I don’t want to die either, but it’s just something we all have to do eventually.

And... I’m okay with that.”

John frowned. “But I’m not.” He stood and looped Dave’s uninjured arm around his neck. He looked between Rose and Jade. “Call 911 and help me move Dave outside.”

Jade ran to the phone and Rose helped to lift Dave up and out into the outside hallway. John held up Dave’s injured arm above his head. Jade came out with the phone. “They’ll be here in ten minutes, at the most.” John bit his lip and watched Dave’s black cherry blood roll down his arm and soak into the concrete. Dave lolled his head to face John and smiled awkwardly.

“It’s fine, John.”

“Shut up.” John smiled back and planted a quick kiss on Dave’s forehead.

Dave smiled and his eyes drifted shut.


	14. The tape is static.

It was dark.   
Dave remembered it was very dark.  
And that he was floating.   
He felt like he was made of helium and that he could just float up, up and away forever.   
It felt nice.  
The suddenly shone a light in front of him and he began to float towards it. The light erupted and engulfed him and he was suddenly in a white room with a ceiling that went up so far it looked like it didn’t exist. He was, once again, tied to a chair. A woman stood in front of him. She must’ve been about twenty feet tall. In her right hand, she held a large golden scale. In her left hand, she held a large sword with a golden hilt. She was clothed in large white sheets that flowed like water and shifted like it, too. A teal cloth was bound around her eyes. The woman looked down at him calmly.   
“Dave Strider?”  
He nodded.  
She smiled and hung the scale on a gold hook on the wall. “You are currently residing in the Waypoint.  
This is a place where you are tried for heaven or hell, however…” She paused “A trial such as yours is completely different from the norm. Rather than be tried for such other worldly places, you will be tried to live or die and wander in limbo for eternity.”  
She held out her now empty right hand and a stack of variously sized clay tablets appeared in it.   
She began listing a mix of good and bad deeds, the good deed tablets floating to the right side of the scale and the bad deed tablets floating to the left side of the scale. Some were minor, like stealing a pack of gum at age fifteen and holding open a door or returning a little kid’s stuffed animal at age eighteen. Others were much bigger. Like cheating on a girlfriend and banishing ghosts.   
“To this date” she said, “You have returned roughly one hundred sixty-three souls to the Otherworld.” A large tablet lifted off of the stack and settled onto the right side of the scale. “You have banished sixteen demons back to hell.” A smaller tablet moved to the right side. “But yet all of this was partially for revenge”—A tablet the same size of both the other ones moved to the left—“And to protect the ones you love, and even those who you do not know, nor love.” The final tablet in her hand moved to the right side of the scale. “Well then, let’s see how this plays out.” She smiled dryly and said something in Latin, which caused both sides of the scale to drop.   
They bobbed back and forth and he watched, anxiety causing his stomach to tie itself in knots. The tablets, stacked like bricks, teetered back and forth until the right side leaned a bit lower than the left.  
The woman smiled “Well! It seems you qualify to go back to Earth and in human form.”  
Everything happened so quickly. The woman seemed to shrink down to about a quarter of her original size and Dave was somehow released from his bonds. She leaned into his face and kissed him on the lips. Everything went from blindingly white to black again and he woke up in the hospital again.  
John sat in a chair next to his bed, head down, his glasses askew, black circles decorating his lower eyelids. Just like before all of this happened. Dave’s sunglasses were on the table next to the bed and for the first time in years he felt like he didn’t need to wear them all the time anymore. His arm was heavily bandaged and the other arm had an IV running into it, yet again.   
Dave didn’t really remember much, aside from being heaved out into the hallway, his wrist dripping blood at an incredibly fast rate. He remembered the trip to the hospital, John holding his uninjured and limp hand, tears streaming down his face. He remembered words being spoken, but only hearing a loud ringing in his ears and his own heartbeat. He remembered drifting in and out of consciousness.   
He wondered what excuse John and them had fed to the hospital. Hopefully not an attempted suicide. That usually meant mandatory therapy, and that was not usually pleasant when there was nothing wrong to begin with. Dave sighed quietly. He sat forward and felt his grossly oily hair peel away form the pillow. How long had he been asleep anyway? He felt incredibly thirsty and hungry too.   
He leaned close to John’s face until they were about an inch apart. Dave could feel John’s cool breath as he exhaled in his sleep. Dave smirked. Only this time, he leaned and kissed him on the lips. He felt his stomach fly up into his chest and flutter.   
John awoke with a start and crossed his eyes for a fraction of a second before they fell shut. He wrapped his arms around Dave and crushed their lips together. Dave made an attempt to hug him back, but was only semi successful and gently wrapped his injured arm around John and left his IV’d arm behind him. John breathed and sighed “I love you”s against Dave’s mouth and Dave could’ve sworn that he could taste the salt of tears. They kissed over and over again, like lovers that had been reunited after not seeing each other for months.   
They stayed like that for what felt like forever. Or at least until someone cleared their throat behind them. Dave turned around, his cheeks flushing a deep red. It was Rose and Jade, and behind them, a nurse. Rose gave him a wink before Jade ran towards him and hugged him. Hard. As in, hard enough to crush the life out of his lungs. There was a flurry of “I missed you!” and “Thank god you’re okay!” thrown around the room as the nurse patiently changed his dirty bandage. The gash was sealed with five stitches and was a pinkish color around the edges. It was soon covered with a fresh white bandage.   
The nurse smiled and nodded at Dave, “Thanks for helping out my friend, Karkat,” she said in a low voice.  
Dave smiled and nodded dimly, “No problem, Miss…”—he glanced at her nametag—“Maryam.”  
She smiled at him again, like how a mother smiles at a child, and walked out the door.   
Rose gave Dave a wink and nodded to the door and pantomimed answering a phone. Dave shot her a thumbs up.   
Jade smiled and said, “Karkat’s here, too. He wanted to make sure that we were all okay. He’s actually a pretty nice guy, once you get to know him.”  
They all sat and talked for what felt like ages. Apparently Dave had been in a coma for about a week and he nearly died when they reached the hospital. Actually, they had to revive him when he reached the hospital. Dave told them about going to the Waypoint and about the incredibly tall woman who let him live to see everyone else. They told him about everything that had happened while he was gone, and even told a few jokes that the nurse (who he learned was named Kanaya Maryam and that she had been tending to Dave since he arrived.) and Karkat had told them. Soon, Rose and Jade began to slowly filter out and they waved goodbye to John and Dave, promising to bring back ice cream or something.   
After a moment, John sighed and crawled up onto the bed and curled up next to Dave and smiled quietly. He kissed Dave’s chin and for once, all seemed to be well.  
Dave sighed happily, “I love you too, Egderp.”


	15. You simply shrug it off, although... you can't shake the feeling that you're being watched.

As soon as Dave was released from the hospital, he and John returned home to their smallish apartment. Dave yanked out the box of tapes and tossed the min the dumpster. John only looked at the box questioningly before shaking his head and going back to doing whatever cute thing he was doing. Dave had made sure to tape the box shut before he threw it out.   
Although, he checked back the next day and the box was missing…


	16. Thanks.

I'd like to thank all of my readers for being uber patient with this. I had a lot of fun writing it and I hoped you liked it! You're all wonderful and as always I am open to criticism. Thank you all so much and please feel free to read my newer fics.  
Love you guys! <3 Ethan


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